The archived blog of the Project On Government Oversight (POGO).

Apr 12, 2012

V-22 Morocco Crash Latest in Program Expert Says Should Have Been Stopped

By DANA LIEBELSON

A V-22 Osprey crashed during a training exercise in Morocco yesterday, killing two U.S. Marines and severely injuring two others. The cause of this particular accident is unknown, but some crashes in the past have involved a dangerous flying condition of which the V-22 is prone to experience. The Morocco crash brings the total number of fatalities from V-22 accidents to 36. Of those fatalities, all but four have taken place during training exercises—not in combat zones—and the lion’s share of those training exercise deaths occurred in one notorious accident.

The V-22, which takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like a plane, had its first flight in 1989 (there are two similar variants of the V-22 in use—the Marine Corps MV-22 and the Air Force CV-22). The program is expected to cost taxpayers around $57 billion, and has been beset by cost overruns and schedule delays, fueled in part by its technical problems and the challenges the design poses. Regarding the latter, as we wrote in 2005, the V-22’s unique design characteristics mean it “can’t auto rotate to a safe landing…lacks the ability to perform quick evasive combat maneuvers under fire, and can’t descend too quickly or it will go into a dangerous roll.”

Since its inception, there have been five fatal crashes, as well as other nonfatal ones. A notable crash in April 2000, which killed 19 Marines during a nighttime training exercise in Arizona, is still being investigated by Representative Walter Jones (R-NC). Although the Department of Navy and the Marine Corps maintain that the crash was due to pilot error, those familiar to the accident believe it was the fault of the V-22’s “vortex ring state.” Jones is fighting to clear the pilots’ names.

As Time Magazine’s Battleland reported, the Morocco crash is the first fatal MV-22 crash since 2000—however; there was a fatal CV-22 crash in Afghanistan in 2010 which should not be discounted from the V-22’s crash record. The CV-22 is the special forces version of the V-22 and is very similar except for extra fuel tanks and radar equipment. There was serious controversy over the accident report of the 2010 crash. Investigator Brig. Gen. Donald Harvel, who concluded that engine failure was the cause of the accident, told Air Force Times that “there was absolutely a lot of pressure to change my report.” The Air Force ultimately overruled Harvel’s conclusion, alluding to pilot error as the cause. According to Danger Room, the changed report represented growing evidence that “the military is deliberately obscuring the truth regarding the V-22′s ongoing safety woes.”

Tom Christie, the Pentagon’s former Director of Test and Evaluation, told POGO that as far as he’s concerned, the V-22 program should never have been allowed to get this far. Christie said:

I have no idea what happened [in Morocco], but the V-22 has a fundamental design problem [the vortex ring state] that pilots have to work around, and that problem has existed since day one. You can use operational procedures to prevent the problem from happening, but it’s difficult in certain kinds of combat scenarios not to get into that situation. The military is not about to scrap the V-22 program now—we’ve bought them already—but the program should not have been allowed to come to this point.

Comments

"according to William Lawrence, who was in charge of testing the V-22s from 1985 to 1988."

First flight of the V-22 occurred on 19 March 1989. It would be interesting to learn the extent of the static testing Lawrence was engaged in prior to the commencement of flight testing.

I wonder what both you and Lawrence have to objectively say about the manner in which Brow and Gruber flew their Osprey on 8 April 2000. Their egregious violation of the 800/40 rule which they were both trained to follow; particularly Gruber who was an experienced CH-53 pilot, their deviation from NATOPS, loss of situational awareness and numerous violations of basic airmanship rules are never mentioned. Instead, all we get from the neophytes is that the aircraft was to blame. Wrong. The indisputable fact is that if Brow and Gruber had piloted any other rotary winged platform in the same reckless manner as they did that Osprey, the end result would have been the same. The aircraft did indeed experience VRS but thay was due to the numerous mistakes made by the aircrew which proved fatal. Jones is wasting his time in his revisionist history crusade.

Despite you and your colleagues continued wail to the contrary:

"but some crashes in the past have involved a dangerous flying condition of which the V-22 is prone to experience."

one Osprey has been lost to pilot induced VRS. The V-22 is less susceptible to encountering VRS than any other rotary winged platform in the inventory and when encountered has the ability to recover much quicker. Its maximum rate of descent at low ground speed is much higher than that of traditional rotary winged platforms. Those facts are never mentioned by people like you.

Why are you so bent on lying about the performance and history of this aircraft?

A.A. Cunningham, as I wrote earlier, while the cost has been high, supporters of the Osprey say the program has surmounted earlier technical challenges and that its flight envelope—the parameters of performance given certain factors needed for safe flight—are well understood now. But technical problems with the aircraft and its flight envelope were especially not well understood back in 2000 when the Arizona crash occurred, according to William Lawrence, who was in charge of testing the V-22s from 1985 to 1988.

Liebelson continues to perpetuate the ignorance regarding the V-22 and VRS. That's SOP for POGO and apparently a prerequisite for employment. Although much of the following report is obviously over her head and that of her colleagues at POGO, even a neophyte can understand the following. By the way Dana, how much United Technologies stock is currently in your and your colleagues portfolios?

In August 2003, the V–22 Integrated Test Team completed a thorough investigation of the V–22’s low-speed / HROD flight characteristics. Testing defined an operational envelope for the aircraft and demonstrated flight regimes free from vortex ring state (VRS). Tests also probed deeply into fully developed VRS to determine precise flight conditions where it may be encountered, and to confirm the ability of the V–22 to recover from the condition. The ability to tilt the nacelles proved to be a powerful and (in every case) reliable means for rapidly regaining aerodynamic function of the rotors, even when operating in
VRS beyond the point of having sufficient controllability. Results for steady-state HROD conditions are presented and the methods for testing are described. In an operational sense, the test results show that the V–22 has a significantly higher rate of descent margin for avoiding VRS with respect to the published NATOPS limitation than conventional low disk-loading helicopters. Furthermore, dynamic maneuver testing of the V–22 showed that VRS cannot be initiated outside the steadystate VRS boundary. Simple engineering analysis is used to show that the V–22’s steady-state VRS boundary is predictable by simple methods that work for conventional helicopters. High blade twist, and the side-by-side rotor configuration of the V–22 do not play a significant role in defining the VRS boundary.